LAST DAY TOGETHER

in the M church I serve was sad. Although we are meeting remotely every Tuesday morning, it is hard not to be together in person.
   The Thursday before our last in person meeting, I had visited 3 parishioners in a care facility where I had my temperature taken and before it was closed down to all visitors. I am so thankful to have seen them both the husband & wife, and another woman and was able to bring them communion.
   When I arrived home, I emptied my communion kit and cleaned out the plastic bottle that held grape juice. That act of emptying the communion kit and eventually putting the top back on the plastic bottle really hit home to me that I wouldn't be able to serve parishioners the grace of the Lord
that we all so desperately need. Especially as we head towards Holy Week with Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday celebration.
   It seemed like such a final act. There would be no communion for quite some time, whether at L  church or M church. We wouldn't be joined to Christ in the same way. Yes, by our faith, by our love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ we are joined together. But in this act of Christ Jesus giving himself to us in love is what I will miss.. That tangible act of tender love and giving of himself that I can share with the ones I serve is just so profound.. It makes God's love for us in Christ Jesus
so real - a way to smell, touch, see, taste and feel.
   I wept in my heart and felt the lump in my throat as the reality of our present situation and the threat of COVID19 become so very real.
   I pray for the day when the threat is over, people have recovered and we can once again rejoice
in being joined together in Holy Communion and taste again the utter grace of the love of Christ.
After this unintentional fast from Holy Communion, may it taste ever more satisfying than ever before, more filling, more loving and dripping grace and joy. May it so fill us with the goodness of Jesus' love that we could burst for sheer joy, so filled with love for one another and for all the world that our hearts can scarcely contain it.
   But until then, we fast and long.